For the first time in a while, the Bruins gathered at Warrior Ice Arena on Wednesday to dust themselves off after a legitimately bad loss.
Facing a Toronto Maple Leafs team that they could have climbed over in the standings and could very well face in the first round of the playoffs, the Bruins fell flat on Tuesday, falling behind 6-1 before making the score a more respectable 6-4.
On a second viewing, Coach Bruce Cassidy saw a little more brightness that wasn’t evident in the midst of the defeat. But not much.
“Maybe the first seven, eight minutes of the game. I’ve always felt at home you want to push the pace early and put teams on their heels – and I’m certainly not saying we did that – but it was more of an even game than I had thought. We got a power-play goal to get us back in it,” said Cassidy. “But after that, no, it was execution with the puck where we gave Toronto some easy opportunities as opposed to making them work for them. They’ll hurt you that way. I think the eye test was accurate for the most part.”
Cassidy is contemplating lineup changes but he was not ready to announce them before he had to. He’s been talking about working in both Mike Reilly and newcomer Josh Brown in on a third pair and it’s a safe bet at least one of them will go in against the New Jersey Devils on Thursday.
“We’ll make some changes. We’ll wait to get here in the morning and see if there’s any surprises,” said Cassidy. “Where we are now, I think there were three games we were running with the lineup I thought was playing really well. I looked at Tampa, the Islanders and Toronto as good (games)… to see where you’re at, what’s going well. Obviously the first two went better than (Tuesday). Now it’s 16 games in 30 days. We have 25 healthy bodies. How do we best prepare, still accumulate points but keep the other guys sharp and ready? Because we’ve got to get in the playoffs, but once we get in, you know there’s a war of attrition at times if you expect to achieve what you want to and keep advancing. There’s a little bit of that that we have to do with our lineup.”
Reilly and Brown have been practicing together as a pair for several days now and the easiest switch could be for them to go in for Derek Forbort and Connor Clifton. Forbort was not as noticeable as some other D-men – considering his stay-at-home game, that’s not a knock – but Clifton had a particularly rough first period, when he was directly responsible for two goals against. The first one was the result of a bad pass that Jason Spezza collected and and fed Colin Blackwell for the first goal of the game.
But the second was more damaging. TheBruins had been outplayed in the first but it looked like they’d get out of it down by just a goal. But late in the period, Clifton’s shot was blocked by Alex Kerfoot, who took it the other way for a breakaway goal that changed the complexion of the game.
Cassidy was not pleased.
“If you watch that play, David Pastrnak‘s at the near post by himself. They hadn’t recovered yet. So if he just gets it on the ice by that guy, David’s got a chance in front for a tip,” said Cassidy. “We’ve been preaching these in-the-shin-pads shots for a long time around here and at some point it’s got to start happening for those defensemen at the O-zone blue line. This is one area (to build offense into the D’s game). Get the puck past the first layer. That’s your first job. The first layer cannot block a shot. The second and third, if there’s a guy behind that guy, yes, it becomes harder to get it through. Most defenses are like that now. But you’ve got to get it by the first layer… I’m not letting the player off the hook on that one. Your head’s up, you’ve got time. You’ve got to get it by him.”
Whether those miscues happened or not, Cassidy was still leaning toward making changes. They have eight defensemen for a reason. Teams need at least that many to get though what it hopes will be a two-month journey to a Stanley Cup. But you can’t have them sitting for too long.
“This is about getting guys work. If guys haven’t played in two months, I don’t think that’s conducive to success for those individuals, so let’s work them in along the way, without disrupting our flow and big picture of what we want,” said Cassidy. “We’ve seen over the last few years with COVID guys go in and out of your lineup very quickly, so you’ve got be able to adapt. Not that that’s going to be an issue going forward, but if there’s a sudden injury… I don’t think it’s a bad thing to work other guys in and keep them motivated.”
TAYLOR HALL was hit with a $5,000 fine for his roughing of the Leafs’ Ilya Lyubushkin on Tuesday. After a hit along the left boards that both Hall and Cassidy did not like, Hall swung his gloved hand at Lyubushkin’s neck/chin area then pushed him to the ice. Lyubushkin left the game with an undisclosed injury and did not return.
LINUS ULLMARK will get the start in net on Thursday against New Jersey.
THE BRUINS added organizational depth to their goaltending by signing Western Michigan goalie Brandon Bussi to a one-year entry level contract worth an NHL cap hit of $825,000. The deal will kick in next year but, in the meantime, Bussi will report to Providence for the rest of the season on an amateur tryout agreement.
The 6-foot-5, 209-pound Bussi, 23, posted a 46-25-5 record with a 2.61 goals-against average and .910 save percentage in his career with the Broncos.
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